OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs to meet in Warsaw for Karabakh talks

PanARMENIAN.Net - The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs will meet in Warsaw to discuss next steps with the parties on Nagorno-Karabakh, the U.S. Co-Chair James Warlick said in his Tweeter post.

“The U.S hopes that the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents will meet in the near future, U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan Richard Morningstar said.

"This meeting can be both formal and informal," Morningstar told Azeri journalists in Baku on April 23.

"As a co-chairing country of the OSCE Minsk Group, we are active in the ongoing negotiations, the diplomat said.

"I believe that the regular meetings of the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents are very important to discuss concrete actions to resolve the conflict," Morningstar added.

As Warlick said in another Tweeter post, a meeting with the Armenian-American community in LA and the Azeri-American community in Houston to discuss the Nagorno Karabakh issue is scheduled for in May.

Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev met in Vienna November 19, 2013 for the first time in two years.

The meeting was later joined by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs who afterwards made a statement.

According to the statement, during the tête-à-tête conversation, followed by a working meeting with the co-chairs, the leaders of the two countries’ discussed a wide range of issues related to the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

As the presidential press service reported, Sargsyan and Aliyev agreed to promote further negotiations to achieve a peaceful solution and instructed Foreign Ministers to continue working with the co-chairs to achieve the goal.

The conflict between Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan broke out as result of the ethnic cleansing launched by the Azeri authorities in the final years of the Soviet Union. The Karabakh War was fought from 1991 (when the Nagorno Karabakh Republic was proclaimed) to 1994 (when a ceasefire was sealed by Armenia, NKR and Azerbaijan). Most of Nagorno Karabakh and a security zone consisting of 7 regions are now under control of NKR defense army. Armenia and Azerbaijan are holding peace talks mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group up till now.

The OSCE Minsk Group

The OSCE Minsk Group was created in 1992 to encourage a peaceful, negotiated resolution to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. The Minsk Group is headed by a Co-Chairmanship consisting of France, Russia and the United States. The main objectives of the Minsk Process are as follows: Providing an appropriate framework for conflict resolution in the way of assuring the negotiation process supported by the Minsk Group; Obtaining conclusion by the Parties of an agreement on the cessation of the armed conflict in order to permit the convening of the Minsk Conference; Promoting the peace process by deploying OSCE multinational peacekeeping forces.